


Maybe, Maybe Not

by mrsprobie



Series: Dudley, You're a Wizard (Too) [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Magical Dudley Dursley, Vernon Dursley Being an Asshole
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-06
Updated: 2017-08-06
Packaged: 2018-12-12 02:01:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11727174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrsprobie/pseuds/mrsprobie
Summary: Petunia Dursley realizes that it isn't just her nephew who can do magic.





	Maybe, Maybe Not

_Maybe, Maybe Not_

Having her nephew dumped on her doorstep was not Petunia Dursley's idea of a good joke. When it became clear that it wasn't a joke - that her sister was dead - she was initially more confused than upset. She had been under the impression that Lily had friends, close friends if freakish ones, and that one of them would have been entrusted with her child. When she wrote the Professor Dumbledore who had signed the letter in the basket (perhaps the same who had signed the fateful letter from her childhood), he'd replied telling her that there was no one else.

And so she and Vernon raised him, and she felt like they were doing an alright job.

No, he didn't have his own room, but he was a toddler, and toddlers didn't really  _need_  that much space. Vernon was quite radically against the idea of the dangerous freakishness that the parents had held, and he made it clear that if there was any way to keep the child from displaying it, he wanted to pursue it. He wasn't a bad person, and he didn't  _want_ to treat a little boy like less-than; he just wanted his family safe, dammit, and if stomping the magic out of him was what it took, then by god he'd do it.

And that was fine with her, until a chilly January day in 1986. The boys were five and a half, and they were just acting like  _boys_ , honestly: Harry would pick up a toy and toss it in the air like the little menace he was, no regard for the things or people around him - every now and then it would float above him for a few seconds too long, and she would flinch - and then Dudley would grab it away from him, and Harry would start to whine, and she'd have to step in and break it up. She saw Dudley leering at the smaller boy's toy and mentally prepared herself to mediate yet again, but this time there was no need.

The next time Harry tossed the toy above his head, Dudley glared at it with fierce concentration, and it slowly levitated away from Harry and into his pudgy little hands.

Petunia felt bile rising in her throat and willed herself not to be sick in front of the boys. She warned them tersely to behave, then strode quickly down the hall and into the first-floor half-bath. She locked the door firmly behind her before allowing herself to let out a heaving sob. It was spinning around her, the mint walls and the lacy hand towels and the sconces with their sickening off-yellow light, it was all spinning.  _What am I going to do?_ She couldn't tell Vernon. Maybe it was just a fluke. Maybe it was Harry's doing, somehow. She resolved to put it at the back of her mind.

Her resolve lasted six days, until Dudley had a tantrum and (magically) shattered every glass at the kitchen table. Vernon was still at work, thank god, and Dudley was so frightened himself that he immediately froze, looking like he'd seen a ghost. She took advantage of the shock, sending each boy to his room or cupboard. Maybe it was time to move Harry out of there.

Wouldn't it have been so much easier if Dudley could accidentally clean things instead of breaking them? Her mind wandered to a few occasions when she had maybe assigned Harry too many chores for a child to possible get done in a day, and when she had been surprised to see them all completed by dinnertime. She shuddered.

It was after four in the afternoon, so she didn't feel as bad as she could have pouring herself a tall gin and tonic and downing it while she thought about what to do. After making her choice, she poured a shot of gin into the same pint glass, shooting it back to try to build up her courage. She shuddered again, but this time it was from the heat sliding down her throat and not the chill sliding down her spine.

She poured another gin and tonic, this one smaller and properly garnished with a slice of lime, and found a pad of yellow legal paper and a pen. She wrote the letter quickly, knowing that she needed to finish it before Vernon got home from work. ( _Maybe I should just tell him,_  she thought, and then a third shudder racked her skinny body.)

She shoved it into an envelope and, feeling slightly stupid, addressed it to  _Hogwarts, Scotland_. She listened for Dudley's movements upstairs - Harry had been quite quiet under the stairs - and slipped out into the front yard when she was sure that her son wasn't about to come downstairs and notice her gone. She strode through the light snow with what she hoped was nonchalance to the post box at the end of the street and slid it into the little drawer, holding her gaze on it for only a moment before letting the handle go. It clattered shut, and she hoped desperately that it wouldn't get picked up by a regular mailman, that he wouldn't recognize her handwriting, that he wouldn't think her insane and tell  _anyone_. Maybe she shouldn't have sent it.

Deciding that whether the letter reached Hogwarts or the hands of the mailman, someone would come around who would be upset to see a little boy living in a cupboard under the stairs, she took the walk home slowly, mulling over how she was going to explain this to Vernon. Once in the house, she called out for both boys to join her in the living room. She told them bluntly that Harry was to take Dudley's second bedroom, and that she didn't want to hear a single word about it.

She told Harry to take his things to Dudley's - to  _his_  bedroom. She sat Dudley down on the couch next to her and started to try to placate him.

To her surprise, he didn't seem to need to be placated about the bedroom. He still seemed upset about the incident earlier with the glasses. She tried instead to help ease that: she told him it wasn't his fault, that that sort of thing just  _happened_  sometimes, that she wrote to someone for help. None of it seemed to help.

"Am I a freak now?" her little boy asked. His eyes seemed to bore into hers, and her heart seized. "Like Harry?"

"You're not a freak," she said. She forced more words out: "I only said that to Harry because I was afraid, and it was wrong of me."

"But you're not scared anymore?" The confusion was written across his face plain as day, and she didn't know how to lie to him.

"I am," she admitted, "but we can do this together."

Dudley frowned. "You and me and Daddy and Harry?"

She bit her lip. "Let's, er - let's not tell Daddy just yet, hm?"

He nodded, not knowing any better, and he perked up when she offered him ice cream. Thinking that maybe it was time to try harder, she called up the stairs for Harry. His eyes grew to the size of saucers when he saw that she'd set a bowl aside for him. He must have thought she'd gone off the deep end, or that he'd won the lottery.

She watched the boys eat, the unsure way Dudley looked at his own hands. For the second time in her life, she found herself waiting with bated breath for a reply from Hogwarts.

* * *


End file.
